


Albert Mason and the Bleeding Heart

by radicalskeletal



Series: By My Side, He Seemed To Me Like a Ghost [1]
Category: Red Dead Redemption
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Pre-Slash, cowboy whump, spoilers for chapter 4 and up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-10
Updated: 2019-01-10
Packaged: 2019-10-07 12:07:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17365640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/radicalskeletal/pseuds/radicalskeletal
Summary: Albert Mason has decided that Arthur Morgan is his next endangered predator that needs saving. He just doesn't know it yet.





	Albert Mason and the Bleeding Heart

On the third night without bison, Albert decides he might have more luck exploring the plains for mermaids.

What was one to attract the beasts with? Sweet hay? A call? Kentucky bluegrass? Albert was at a loss, and the pocket watch in his vest felt heavier by the hour. Another failed venture, another reason he should go back to New York.

New York was a fine place to find patrons, but cheap it was not. And Albert had evicted himself to the west until he had enough material for a portfolio, or suffered a terrible death to its unfreindly tenants. Whichever came first. Albert had been stung, bitten, snarled at, and generally threatened with a vengeance by all manner of beasts since his return. God's country seemed loath to being documented by such an unworthy outsider as he. Surrounded by beauty and savagery, Arthur had never felt so enchanted and intimidated.

Well, except for the times that kind gentleman, Arthur Morgan, had saved his hide. But that had been some time ago, and the man had made himself scarce since. Perhaps he could sense his idiocy and had taken himself far from Albert's inferior tenderness. Albert understood himself to be a burden to such a man. A fellow whose very walk assured consummate dominance over his untamed land.

Albert settled in to his last can of vegetables and a biscuit that night. He had failed to make a lasting fire out of the brush he had gathered from around his sad, sagging tent. The smoky embers had been enough to heat some water for tea and not much else. At least his horse ate well that night, settling happily into saddlebag fare of oatcakes.

He was gazing into his lantern and dreaming of cozier times when he heard a horse pull off from the road into his direction on the crest of the hill.

Albert grew wary, even as his ears perked at the leisurely pace of the approaching hoof beats. This was O'Driscoll territory, and he didn't have a dollar to his name to persuade them to pass on shooting him dead. He wouldn't have any money again until he mailed a satisfactory print to either the universities or the journals interested in his work, whichever would bite first. There likely wasn't a homestead or traveler for miles. If things were to go south, no one would hear him. Not for the first time, he remembered the postmaster in Valentine looking him up and down with a dubious look and advising him to buy a gun and learn to use it.

“Mr. Mason!” a gruff voice called.

It took a moment for Albert to recognize the voice. The last time he had heard it, it had been softer and less gruff. “Mr. Morgan!” he greeted with some relief and bewilderment. He dusted himself off and brightened the light from his weak little lantern. “How happy I am to see you. Please sit!”

Arthur Morgan rode up on a horse with pale blue eyes and a coat of spun gold. He was looking much thinner and grimmer than he had when Albert had last seen him. Then he had been warm and gentle, the sun reflecting of the Dakota River and into his eyes. Tonight, his hat was pulled down low like armor, and his body was stiff and unexpectedly hunched. His eyes glimmered out from purple sockets and his hands gripped the reins like a lifeline. His knuckles were dusted in a smattering of fading bruises.

He did not sit. “Still traipsing about this death trap, Mr. Mason?” His voice was thicker than before, and less humored.

Albert's smile faded a little. When he had recognized Arthur, he had jumped up like an excited child. Now, cowed by his friend's reticence, he hesitated. Undeterred, he announced, “Someone will be recording the beauty of this place sooner or later, Mr. Morgan. As I figure it, it might as well be before the greatest predators destroy it, even if I am undeserving of the task.”

Arthur grunted and swung a leg over his horse's neck. He looked nothing like the bear of the man that had defended him from coyotes and wolves. Even his collar bone was jutting out from beneath his shirt collar. Albert cursed himself in his heart for not having more food to share with the man that had saved his neck in any way that mattered to him.

“Excuse my dreadful hospitality. You won't tell my mother, will you? I'm more afraid of her than our wolf friends, to be honest. Won't you have some tea?”

“I will, thank you.”

Albert busied himself pouring out a steaming cup. He had learned how to make a decent tea out of the local flora from the amiable general store owner in Strawberry, and his pack was lined with dried blossoms. He eyed Morgan from the corner of his eye, but looked away quickly when he noticed the acute study Arthur was eyeing him with.

“I didn't think I'd ever see you out this way again.” Arthur accepted the tea and crumbly biscuit with a nod of thanks. He crouched heavily next to the fire, shoulders slumped. They did not look half as broad as he remembered.

“Me neither, sir, but circumstance has deemed it so I give my artistic subjects a second chance at my hide. Perhaps this time they will triumph and the poachers in these hills will be happier to be rid of me and my foolish quest.”

“Poachers, huh? The real animals. They're here for the buffalo.”

“So am I. But we find ourselves at odds for the destiny of our marks,” Albert admitted darkly. He picked away a few crumbs from his trousers to keep his hands from shaking. He didn't want to appear weak in front of his returned friend, one who had so often seen him dimwitted and out of his element.

Albert's curse was being a friendly man in unfriendly circumstances. He found many of the residents near his chosen models to be of affable character, and so Albert did as he was always wont to do: talk. As his dear mother had always said, her sweet fool boy could talk the ear off a mule. Albert had a habit of making friends fast and easy in whatever circumstances he found himself, and that included among the strange, dour folk in the west. He had a way of becoming popular for his tales, demeanor, and camera. Albert had been in the area for close to a month, and it was now not so strange for a local to invite him to a drink at the saloon and even, twice now, to a home in town for a home cooked meal in exchange for him shooting a family portrait. He had divulged his quest to anyone who would listen, and had attracted the attention of a less welcoming party.

The pack of poachers that had descended on the heartlands had been a desperate sort, pushed north and out of West Elizabeth by hungrier and even more desperate men that would no doubt hunt the buffalo west of Blackwater to ruin. They would often have less to their name than even Albert himself, and sometimes they'd be close enough that he could see the glow of their campfires. Other days he would only find their kills, left disgraced in the dust. But they were universally ill tempered and had a meanness about them that Albert knew he could not temper with his courtesy. Besides, the carcasses they left behind soured him to tolerance.

On his first week in Valentine, when he had still had enough to his name to stay at the hotel, he had stumbled out of the saloon late one night and into the rough arms of a few poachers. They had come out of the darkness so quickly that Albert had barely had enough time to let out an affronted squawk before a callused hand had clapped over his mouth. There had been three of them, stinking of rough living, crowding him against the side of the saloon. Albert was a tall man, equal in height even to Morgan himself, but not half as broad or brave.

“Leave us to our business, and you'll live to go home,” the oldest had said. His thin lips had sneered from under a perfectly trimmed mustache. “This isn't a holiday, you ignorant clown. Get out of the goddamned way.”

Albert had whimpered and nodded quickly. He'd curled away from the grimacing faces, eyes wide and shiny with liquor and fear. They'd robbed him while the youngest had choked him with righteous fury. His nails had clawed into Albert's windpipe with a vengeance, and the only thing his darkening field of vision had been able to focus on was the hatred, the hatred in his young face.

That night he'd had little sleep. He'd paced his room and pondered going back to New York, money and bison be damned. But in the morning he had packed his things, unable to afford a room, and left. He'd sat on his leased horse's back in front of the train station for upwards of ten minutes before guiding his knock-kneed steed into the heartlands.

“Is that right?” Arthur puffed cool air on the tea and paused. He was too still for a moment, eyes closed off. His crows feet were deep in the light of the lantern, but even in the dark, Albert recognized the same blue. He hadn't realized just how much he'd missed Arthur until he had gotten him back.

“A man I used to know made tea this way,” Arthur murmured. His eyes were far away. “Didn't expect to ever taste it again. Thank you, Mr. Mason.”

“Consider it a paltry recompense for keeping my head on my shoulders, sir. A friend of yours, Mr. Morgan?”

“A good friend. Made himself out to be something of good father to me, too. I do miss that man.” Arthur looked down, looking for all the world like a man that had said too much. A wry, humorless twist to his lips. Albert saw the pain, and looked away to spare his friend his scrutiny. “Best damn tea.” He turned away into the darkness and hacked a rumbling, wet cough and wiped his mouth before turning back.

“I'm afraid mine must be a meager proxy. Mr. Morgan, how are you? I feel that the last time I had any meaningful conversation was the last time I saw you,” he confessed. Albert Mason was capable of exchanging with society madams and stable hands alike and leave the conversation with a feeling of mutual warmth and humor, silver tongue that he was, but subtle he was not, and he was not a man to force confidence or intimacy of a conversation. And Albert was incapable of prying words from such a man as Arthur Morgan. His own conscious wouldn't allow it from his friend and savior, even if it meant that Arthur would not share the root of his problems, as Albert suspected of a man as bullish as him.

Maybe it was his admission of isolation, or the fact that Morgan and he were not tied together in any sense, and not compelled to see each other again. Whatever did it, Albert saw the shoulders sag, freed from forced machismo.

“I'm sick, Mr. Mason. I'm not who I was when you met me. I've lost too much.” Arthur's voice was steady, almost abrupt, and his eyes focused on the tea in his hands. He quickly downed the biscuit resting on his knee, perhaps to muffle anything else before it escaped.

“I'm truly sorry, Mr. Morgan. Truly.” Albert cleared his throat. His voice had come out huskier with sadness than he had intended. “There's is no justice in this world if a good man like you is unwell. If there is anything I can do, I'm your humble servant. Is there?”

“There is not, Mr. Mason. Thank you.”

It seemed cruel to Albert that such a man would be brought down like this. Consumption had taken his father when he'd been a boy, and watching him waste and waste and wither and die had been the hardest thing in his young life to watch. It had turned his poor mother half-mad with grief for a month. Looking at Arthur now, and thinking of the thrill Albert had gotten when he'd pulled to safety over the cliff and had loomed over him like an avenging angel for a moment, Albert could see why. And he could see that murderous disease pulling all the strength from Arthur now, and resolved that he would protect this man if he could. Not only because it was owed, but because he knew Arthur deserved it.

“I admit that I find it unfair,” Albert said, and immediately chided himself.

Arthur didn't meet his eyes. “What are you doing out here?”

Albert cleared his throat, but was unable to strike up even an ounce of levity. “I'm here for the menace of the poachers apparently. Lord knows I haven't found hide or hair of any living bison since I've returned to the beauty of this place. Only death.”

Albert swirled in his seat next to the lantern, seeking his saddlebag. He summoned and proffered a print of the remains of several buffalo, strewn about a hillside like refuse, condemned to rot. He had happened upon them on his first day back, and had found himself misty-eyed and silent in the face of such humiliation.

“Have they given you any trouble?” Arthur rumbled. Frail as he was, undone as he was, he was still capable of looming over the lantern murderously. His bruised hands returned the print. Albert hunched uncertainly.

“I fear for my life, to be completely honest,” Albert confided. Feeling silly, feeling mad, he confessed the story of his assault by the poachers. His shame returned. How deficient he felt, admitting how the mugging had made his heart thump in dread every night and how he felt like stalked prey sleeping on the plains at night.

“I have felt that way a few times since meeting you, Mr. Morgan. But never before have I been at the mercy of the most deadly hunter.”

“And you will not be tonight, Mr. Mason.” The conviction in Arthur's voice made something ease in Albert's heart. Something unwound that he hadn't realized had been clamped down for weeks, and the relief made Albert's spirit lift in the light of Arthur's trusted confidence. Not for the first time, he remembered how easy it would be to fall in love with this man.

“You're a good man, Mr. Morgan. Won't you stay for a night? I may be a modest host, but it's lonesome out there, and I would appreciate the company.”

“Thank you kindly, Mr. Mason. That's awful good of you.” Even through the courtesy, Albert could see Arthur wrestling with the idea of leaving. But Albert didn't want him to go. Before, it had been different. But now, time was precious. Albert might mourn if Arthur passed now, but at least he'd know that he savored every priceless moment.

Really, how whimsical. He'd have to pull himself together. “Oh, I don't know about that, Mr. Morgan. Who knows, you might curse yourself for accepting this ass's invitation!”

“Mr. Mason, you do make me laugh, the way you talk about yourself.” Arthur's eyes were too bewitching. Albert felt helpless in the face of their hypnotic focus, spotlighted on his contemptible person.

Arthur unsaddled his horse as Albert took the liberty of laying out both of their bedrolls. If he laid them out one next to the other beneath his tiny tent, what of it? He was perfectly capable of accepting rejection, but he was not keen on not attempting to look after the other man at all.

“A fine animal, sir,” Albert congratulated.

“Thank you.” Arthur's voice shone with pleasure. It was clear he prided himself on his beast. Albert was growing to like his disagreeable leased nag, but he knew the animal appeared to be nothing greater than glue next to such a steed. Albert told him so, and Arthur laughed.

“A fine girl,” he demurred, and gave both his horse and Albert's a half of an apple. Albert could hardly force himself to look away. How scarred and rough he seemed, but how gentle. Albert hoped he could help this man in some way. As much as he was obviously hounded by his illness, he was still very much the same man Albert had grown to trust in the hinterlands.

They slept together beneath a deluge of stars that night, peeking through the tears in the thin fabric of Albert's tent. Arthur's breath rattled dangerously in his sleep and Albert found himself awake for much of the night. Arthur didn't seem so ill that he would die in the night, but the thought of waking next to his stiff corpse haunted him. Eventually, he fell asleep, dreams fraught with poachers and blood.

Albert woke near dawn to an empty tent and frost on the grass. He curled in on himself within his bedroll, unwilling to face the loneliness. When the sun began to creep through the thin weave of the tent, he pulled himself together and crept out to make coffee.

His eyes fell on not one horse, but two. Arthur's fine horse was still here, even if Arthur wasn't. As was his saddle, and his bedroll. Albert began to feel a slice of cautious hope. Arthur was not a man beheld to many dogmas, he felt, but to abandon his horse and his belongings was not his way.

Albert fetched water for coffee from the stream. Even if he wasn't capable of starting a proper fire, perhaps he could cajole Arthur into it when he returned. As Albert was grooming both horses and cooing praises into their perked ears, he noticed a figure climbing over the hill to meet him. Albert recognized him almost at once, despite the low light of morning.

“Mr. Morgan!” he called jovially. “A fine morning. How are you feeling?”

“Vindicated, Mr. Mason,” Arthur said mysteriously. He pulled two pheasants out of his satchel. “And hungry.”

Albert obliged himself to preparing a meal of game meat as Arthur dressed the birds. Arthur helped him build a proper fire, much to his embarrassment and appreciation, and cooked the birds after Albert volunteered his assortment of herbs and spices collected from his travels. He was a little validated to find a few that Arthur had never handled, like blackcurrant and feverfew.

Arthur cooked the birds to perfection, and Albert remarked so. Arthur demurred to a fault, and saved a few pieces of meat for his saddlebag.

“The poachers shouldn't bother you anymore,” Arthur rumbled in a moment of peace as they watched the world wake up to the morning around them.

“Hmm, what's that?” Albert muttered stupidly as he tore into another pheasant leg. He hadn't realized how hungry he had been until presented with real, delicious food that he had been previously unable to grouse.

“The poachers have left the heartlands. They won't be bothering you anymore, Mr. Mason.”

Albert put down his bird and peered at Arthur. “Mr. Morgan, I insist on knowing. What exactly did you do to those devils?”

The man's face was hidden behind the brim of his hat. Not, Albert noticed now in the daylight, the hat Albert had known him to wear. This one was new.

“I reminded them,” Arthur said carefully to his boots, “that there were far more bountiful and less dangerous places to hunt.”

“Is that right, Mr. Morgan? Capital.”

Arthur peered at him beneath his brim searchingly. “I threatened their lives,” he admitted.

This is a test, Albert realized. This is who he is. I cannot ask him to be anything but what he is, or what I can manage. “They threatened mine.”

“Not anymore.”

Albert realized all at once what this man was offering. What he was pledging. Nothing was going to hurt Albert, not as long as Arthur was there. How unworthy he felt, how undeserving. Albert understood all at once that Arthur was one of the few men that meant exactly what he said and nothing more.

Albert snapped up the last of his pheasant and licked his fingers clean. Oh, if his mother could see him now. “Why would you do such a thing, Mr. Morgan?”

Arthur picked apart his bird like it held the secret to eternal youth until the calculating gaze he was under grew too much and he met Albert's curious ogling with gentle regard. “Consider me an unconventional patron of your art, Mr. Mason.”

Before the sun had fully cleared the horizon, Arthur had compelled Albert to disassemble camp and follow him on horseback through a valley and over several hilltops until he found himself facing a herd of bison. Albert felt his heart ache for the buffalo as he watched them graze. He felt Arthur's eyes on him as he set up his tripod.

This part had always been his ritual. Albert's life lacked regulations or standards, but this was the closest he got to law and order. He calculated the light and the haze of the morning dew, the angle of the hilltop and the focus of the lens. Arthur hung back, coughing raggedly into his sleeve at one point and complimenting the day, but otherwise mostly silent. He simply watched with contentment as Albert marveled and celebrated at finding the small herd after hours of failed pursuit.

He took photograph after photograph, creeping closer with the camera until the bison spooked and loped away into the hills. Normally, Albert would pursue or even ask Arthur to herd the beasts into a fetching light. Now, however, he was under the spell of the natural grace and inscutability of the heartlands.

“I'll bring them around,” Arthur volunteered as he turned to his horse.

“No, Mr. Morgan, let them go,” Albert begged. He was smiling, but he wasn't sure why. Arthur was looking at him, mouth flat but eyes soft.

“Arthur, if you please,” he entreated.

“Let them go, Arthur.”

“As you wish, Mr. Mason.” Arthur's eyes scanned the horizon. Always hunting for danger. Always protecting him. Albert despaired at the cruelty of it all. He considered kissing him outright, and then conceived a different scheme.

“I'm off to New Austin next,” he invented.

“Is that right?” Arthur's eyes inspected him. They weren't so guarded anymore. Albert figured he couldn't afford such a thing. No time to waste.

“Indeed, sir. The wild mustang needs to be documented in its wildness to be preserved, before the more tamed part of our nation forgets what incredible species it shelters. Won't you come?”

He had played his hand too quickly. He'd scared the prey. Arthur's eyes closed off. “ I don't imagine I will, Mr. Mason. I doubt New Austin needs another clod like me making—”

“Call me Albert, please,” he interrupted with desperation.

“Mr. Mason, I won't—”

“You saved my foolish life. I wouldn't be here if not for you, Arthur.” Albert was not a man for theatrics or melodrama, but he would use any means at his disposal to keep Arthur with him. Morgan didn't know, but he had resolved to keep him safe. He couldn't very well do that without the man at his side. Arthur thought he was unworthy and dishonorable, but he didn't know that Albert was capable of schemes of his own, as long as it kept Arthur well.

“I'm flattered, Mr. Mason, but I don't belong in New Austin.”

“Neither do I, sir, but it's my responsibility now to take you there.”

“Mason, what in the blazes are you bellyaching about?”

“I don't know what you did to those poachers, but I know you did it to save my sorry skin. And it's not the first time you've rescued me.” Albert swallowed past the lump in his throat. “The air is drier and safer for you in New Elizabeth. I will protect you, Arthur. Come with me.”

Arthur looked like the grass was holding him fast and wouldn't let him go until he conceded. His mouth worked incredulously until he found his voice. “You...will protect me. Albert. Is that what you're saying to me?”

Albert could hardly hold Arthur's piercing blue gaze. He felt powerless to refuse anything of this man, this guardian angel of his. Bared before those eyes, he felt that he could hide nothing.

“I am obliged to you, Arthur. Whatever it is you're running from can wait for you beyond West Elizabeth, yes? I want you to come with me. You'll grow stronger in the sun. Say you'll come with me.”

“Albert, I beat those poachers half to death.” His voice held not a shred of regret.

Albert stilled his prattle at that.

“I hunted them down like animals this morning. Robbed them and thew their guns down an old oil derrick pit. I'm not a good man. I never was.” There was no quarter in his expression.

“You do make me sorry, the way you talk of yourself,” Albert echoed hoarsely.

Arthur barked a coarse laugh and then a wet series of coughs until Albert stepped forward and held him up with hands on his shoulders.

“Come with me, Mr. Morgan” Albert begged again.

“I'll take you as far as Cholla Springs,” Arthur conceded breathlessly. He cupped Albert's elbows to keep himself steady.

“You'll see,” Albert said fearlessly. He was feeling victorious. If he could bend Arthur Morgan to his will, an impossible feat by any measure, he could conquer all of the South.

Albert Mason had built his life around savagery. He admired the brutality of nature and everything he had never known until traveling west of New York. Arthur Morgan was a perfect example of the fearsome danger he had found around every corner in the wild. Hopefully, he prayed, tempered by Albert himself.

And if that was true, Albert felt like a king, commander of the world's most formidable champion.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the set up for a series of one-shots in the same universe that are already in progress. Let me know what you think! <3


End file.
